User blog:Orange Mo/How to ACTUALLY create an article on the wiki
Creating something new increases the imagination that we seek in new contributors and assimilates you more into the wiki community. When I came to Wikia in 2013, I had no idea about all these articles and how they were REALLY meant to be written. People really don't know what Wikia was really meant for. Yes, it was to build a community with other users about a subject you are all passionate about, but they don't see the big picture. Wikis are something ANYONE with an Internet connection can edit, and someone can revert all their work into something totally false. The new readers don't know the original content on the page was true, so this is why users use sources to back up their content. Nowadays, Wikia has transformed into a community where it's okay not to cite your sources. No it's not, and many people don't really know about their sources and I would like to try to express this more into today's blog. Such as on Clash Royale Wiki, when a reader are reading the article, there may be a significant change in the game that the wiki states, but no one is able to source the claim. That makes the wiki an unreliable place and without sources can damage the relationship of wiki to reader. Unlike Wikipedia, where you will need literally a source for every sentence, every source on Wikia helps to build an article and the site's reputation and even a few sources cited can still be better than none. With many years of Wikia experiences, I present to the readers, How to create an actual legit article on the LT wiki or any wiki. People really don't know tdon't really know about their sources and I would like to try to express this more into today's blog. Such as Clash Royale, when a reader are reading the article, there may be a significant change in the game that the wiki states, but no one is able to source the claim. That makes the wiki an unreliable place and without sources can damage the relationship of wiki to reader. First the creator will have to create an article. This will need the title. A title of the name of the episode, series, and other things forward. The title tells the reader automatically about the subject. So let's say, Tweetie Pie, well okay, without reading the article I can tell it's probably a short subject with Tweety Bird in it. You then want to have a brief description about the new "topic". So, "Tweetie Pie is an animated Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng. Originally a plan by Bob Clampett, Clampett left the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio due to him being fired by Eddie Selzer. The project was then left sitting unfinished." Here is where the creator want to start citing his sources, how do we know that Clampett was fired? Anyone can come up with a bunch of BS/bull and just stick that onto the article. Well, that makes readers debating, is this really true? That's why the creators have to start citing their sources. We can do that by using the open and the close shortcuts. Like an interview with Friz Freleng in the early 60s, explaining about how Clampett got fired by Selzer and the process in an article, or a documentary about Bob Clampett on YouTube. Without sources, our wiki is not really a place for readers to look at and more like a place where we made stuff up that is unsourced and totally false. Now, enough of that, they then want to have a plan for the article. What are they trying to incorporate or build-in? An article is kind of like an essay, what is the main topic of the article/essay? or the building blocks that keep it alive. If the article just had a main heading and a short brief paragraph, it's a stub and stubs are works that need construction to further build on to the article itself or it may be even subject for deletion because it doesn't help the wiki in anyway. Let's go back to the Tweetie Pie example. The cartoon is a short-subject. Since it won the Academy Award/Oscar for best short film in 1947, maybe we can elaborate more on the creation progress, such as when Freleng took over the project and the challenges he faced in doing so. "Freleng then took that project over, and the original plan was to have the woodpecker from Peck Up Your Troubles in another paring against Sylvester. When Friz wanted to replace the woodpecker with Tweety Bird, producer Eddie Selzer objected and Freleng slammed his pencil on the desk and said if he thought he knew so much about cartoons, then he should do the work instead, meaning he threatened to quit. Selzer then apologized to Friz later that day and the cartoon went on to win the Academy Award/Oscar of 1947." Again, no one knew about Selzer objecting to Freleng's original idea so we have to cite again another source. Yes, I know it is a lot of sources, but remember what I said earlier, that anyone can say bogus and we have to have sources to verify the content on there, otherwise it could be removed and put as "vandalism". And no one wants to get in trouble because they forgot to source something. Adding the plot or synopsis of the cartoon's storyline requires no sources, as that can be accessed by watching the cartoon through the Internet or the TV. When the reader finishes reading the plot, maybe they want to know more about the cartoon, rather than just production notes. Like me, I am a huge "additional info" person, and I love to add in more information into an article. Then maybe the creator would make a trivia or notes section (I prefer notes since trivia is more like a game where you have to answer the questions) which will emphasize more onto the content. Back to the Tweetie Pie example. "The cartoon was re-released as a Blue Ribbon with the original titles scrapped from the re-release. Since this was on the original negative, the original titles are presumed to be lost. The cartoon was then sold to Associated Artists Productions in 1956 and many TV recordings from the early 70s had the original music cue playing over the opening titles." This is where we will need our sources again, because someone could just make something up about the titles when it is totally false. I'm being redundant, but when something is repeated, it sticks to the brain and it then becomes a habit. So the editor doesn't forget, "Hmm, this looks kind of fishy. I then need to cite my sources." Let's compare two articles side by side, Porky's Hare Hunt and A Wild Hare. It's obvious the latter has more content, but the latter also cites more sources that we can easily click on and read more about the content itself. With the sources cited, it gives readers easy access to read more about a subject they are passionate about and maybe will attract more readers to the wiki, which is what we want. While the former does have a lot of information, it literally has no sources whatsoever, and there isn't much we can do without sources unless someone can come in fix it up and make it all nice and pretty, and that person may be the next "you". And sometimes an article may have one or two sources, but it doesn't have enough for the amount of content it has and that problem needs to be addressed. No one wants the Unreferenced or Refimprove templates on top of the article. Something on the top will always attract readers and when they see that "this article does not cite any sources.", they immediately move away and leave the wiki, which is not what we want. On the bottom of the blog, it says cite error, that means Wikia gave us some codes we can use to cite our sources, so please take advantage of it because if they are giving us a code to cite our sources, it probably means it's an important feature for any wiki, gaming, informational, or educational. I hope my short blog would help future wiki editors into building the wiki and finding out what this word truly means. To all of you a good night. Category:Blog posts